The ESQ&A: Ophira Eisenberg

Last week, the "Princeton Mom" earned herself short-term fame (and long-term resentment from her son, one hopes) by telling women to find a husband while they're in college. Otherwise, they'll be past their expiration date and rot in a state of putrid spinsterhood. Or worse, be forced to marry outside of their socioeconomic class.

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Comedian and NPR host Ophira Eisenberg has a different strategy to finding a spouse: Take your time—and be kind of slutty. (Her word, by the way).

Eisenberg, who emcees the weekly trivia show "Ask Me Another," has a funny new book called Screw Everyone: Sleeping Your Way to Monogamy. It's a history of her bed-hopping adventures, including, among others, a one-night-stand with a cat doll fetishist and bathroom sex with the lead singer of a U2 cover band. And for the record, she says that she didn't think of herself as being a slut per se. She thought she was just being nice.

Intrigued, Esquire asked Eisenberg for the view from the other side of the bed.

ESQ: What was the worst hookup on your sexual CV?

OPHIRA EISENBERG: Just to be clear, I don't have a sexual CV, only references. But to answer the question—it would probably be the guy whose bedroom was filled with stuffed Garfield dolls. He got on top of me and just pumped away like a jackrabbit on speed—or more to the point, like he was having sex with one of his Garfields, and not even the favorite in his collection. And his eyes were closed, perhaps lost in a world of no Mondays and endless lasagnas.

ESQ: As someone who got married before online dating, I feel I missed out. What was it like for you?

OE: By the time I did online dating, I really struggled with my profile. I was in my thirties, I'd already been around the block, so I just titled it "AS IS." A real fixer-upper. Hobbies included depression, and making you guess why I'm angry.

ESQ: What's your take on the idea that sexually prolific women are considered sluts, while sexually prolific men are considered studs. Is that still true? Will we ever get to a point where a female celebrity can boast that she cracked the 10,000 mark a la Wilt Chamberlain?

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OE: It's interesting how threatening the promiscuous woman is in this world—it's like we're sex ninjas, mysteriously traveling from futon to futon in the darkness of the night. My story would not be noteworthy coming from a guy, so I guess it worked in my favor ultimately. The main goal of my memoir is to entertain, but I'm also challenging the definition of slutty, as the term denotes a woman who is not only promiscuous, but also unraveling, and possibly dumb, mentally unstable, or both. I didn't set out to be slutty; it was often the byproduct of getting what I wanted. I felt empowered going against the accepted "rules" of society by purposefully going home with a guy. They weren't just random guys. I picked them.

To quote JRR Tolkien, which I don't often do—"not all who wander are lost." It is possible to sleep around and be smart about it. I mean you just have to have a certain level of intelligence to get yourself home from Queens at 3 a.m., with only one boot.

ESQ: You really do. Please explain the allure of musicians to men like me who are not musicians.

OE: Music is all about seduction, so it's an ongoing flirtation, but watching anyone do what they are talented at is totally intoxicating. Take even the ugliest guy and have them do something they are really passionate about—they are instantly attractive. Unfortunately watching someone write is a little lackluster. Maybe if they had a really sexy keyboard face…

ESQ: Have you read The Game, Neil Strauss' book about pickup artists? Do you think any of those strategies did or would work on you? Or did you employ any strategies yourself when picking up men?

OE: I think all of those strategies would work on me—I'm an easy mark and a sucker for a charmer. If anyone tried to breathe at the same time as me, I might try to hyperventilate just to see if they'd follow. If they did, I'd probably find that endearing.

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ESQ: You write that you dated a guy who was a huge sex toy enthusiast. And you started to understand the appeal. As you say, you began to associate the "electric humming sound with an impending orgasm. I twitched in a room of fans." So what's your current take on sex toys?

OE: The pros are: you will get off, I promise. They are designed perfectly to do their job, and can easily be cleaned by running them through the dishwasher on the pot scrubber cycle. Cons: I found that it's hard to make love with anal beads up your ass.

ESQ: You lost your virginity to a virtual stranger on a bathroom counter. Would you recommend this to other young women?

OE: I think younger women are up to stranger shit than I could even imagine. But yes, every woman should have goals. I wanted to lose my virginity to a stranger so I could save good sex for someone I was actually in love with. This was based on advice from my older sisters who told me that first time sex was like how Hobbes described man in his natural state, "nasty, brutish, and short." They pretty much nailed it, but he did spoon me to sleep.

ESQ: Your husband wooed you with origami. A good tactic for other men?

OE: If I could possibly start an origami folding trend amongst your male readers I would consider my work in life complete. But my husband didn't just hand me one folded boat—he presented me with 1,000 hand-folded cranes, in different colors and shapes. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen—and also a little creepy. Like one ladybug is adorable, but a thousand -an infestation. And I had to hold myself back from counting them, just too make sure there were actually 1,000. But you don't count the cranes, you just say yes. It was incredibly romantic.

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ESQ: In addition to writing about your unlikely route to monogamy, you host the NPR trivia show "Ask Me Another." (Full disclosure: I am a guest on an upcoming episode). What's the most useless fact you've learned so far?

OE: In Spanish, a turkey goes 'goro goro.' In Turkish, it goes 'glu glu.' And in Russian, it goes 'gooley gooley.'

AJ Jacobs is the author of the bestselling Drop Dead Healthy. Friend him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter @ajjacobs.

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